The Price of Freedom
by BlackRoseWolf103
Summary: With the Bay Harbor Butcher investigation well underway, Dexter is reluctant to attempt any more kills. However, when a new body is found, he is eager to find the culprit and bring them to justice. (Will contain plots from both the show and the books!)
1. Chapter 1

Authors Note:

I do not own Dexter or any of its characters. This is going to be a multi chapter story that is about 10 to 12 chapters total (I have not finished writing it). Please read and review. Hint hint, the more reviews the quicker I will update :). As always enjoy and feel free to check out other stories of mine.

▪️Prologue▪️

(No POV)

The moon hung high in the night sky, smiling down on the world below. In the shadows, a man leaned up against the side of a building, a small gun in his hands. He was dressed completely in black with a cloth mask over his face. He glanced down at his wrist every few seconds, checking his watch. He tapped his foot in anxiousness.

The headlights of a maroon pick-up truck came into view, and he straightened up as he headed towards it and it pulled to a stop in front of him. The man hid the gun behind his back as he took another step forwards into the light, using his hand to shield his eyes.

The hum of the engine died down as the truck was shut off. The driver opened his door and stepped out, glancing around him. His eyes fell on the other man and he hesitated before speaking. "You're the one I'm supposed to meet?" He asked in a deep voice.

"Precisely" the first man told him as he took another step towards him. His voice was muffled by the fabric of the mask.

The second man chuckled. "What the fuck's with the outfit?" He asked. "You look like you're about to rob a bank"

"I don't want my wife to know about my dealing" he answered in a smooth yet deep voice.

"Woman" the second one commented. "They rule our lives"

The first man chuckled. "No kidding" he paused as he looked up again. "So you got it?" He asked.

The second man nodded. He gestured towards a shack off the side of the building. "It's all in the shed" he told him. "I can go get it for you"

"I'll go with you" the first man declared. He stepped away from the truck and towards the shack, glancing up at the moon as he did so. His gaze moved along the trees, as if he was scanning them for any movement. There was a reason this place was isolated. The sale of cocaine wasn't exactly legal. But that wasn't what he was up to.

The second man nodded again. "Alright I've already set it all aside for you to make this go faster"

"I appreciate that" the other man commented. His fingers tightened on the gun in his hands and he clicked the safety off. He followed the second man as he led him to the run down shed. The second man pushed the door open with a loud creak sounding off the old wood. A cloud of dust flew up from the dirt causing the first man to cough slightly.

As the second man went in, the first man aimed the gun at his back. His fingers rested on the trigger, and with a steady aim, he pulled it, causing a loud bang to sound off through the silence and the second man to fall over.

The first man tucked the gun away, and moved towards the second one, crouching down and resting his gloved fingers over his pulse. Nothing.

He stood up and left the shed, heading back towards the pickup truck. He climbed in and turned it on again, as the second man had left his keys in the ignition. He put the truck into reverse and pulled back onto the street. He switched the car to drive and sped off into the pitch black night.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note:

So here is the first chapter

SPOILER FOR THE FIRST BOOK: As I am taking parts from the show and the book, in this fanfiction, LaGuerta will be dead with Angel taking the spot as Lieutenant.

Enjoy, and please leave a review if you want more :)

▪️Chapter 1▪️

(Dexter POV)

 _When had donuts become so expensive_? It was like a punishment from some unrighteous God for which eating sweet pastries was considered a sin. Unfortunately it was poor Dexter who was charged with the responsibility to bring donuts into work, who had to pay the bill. And his credit cards did not appreciate it.

What was even worse about the whole situation, was when Dexter right on schedule brought the donuts into work he was robbed blind right before his eyes as a swarm of cops and detectives took every last Long John and French Crueler right from the box in his hands and he was left to starve. There was definitely some unrighteous God up there, certainly someone who had it out for Dexter.

So there I sat in my little office trying to ignore the sad wailing of my stomach at the thought of not being fulfilled by the warm sensation of sweet frosting and cake filled wonder. It was hard to concentrate on anything on an empty stomach. Apparently I was human enough to have to eat as much as other people just to keep my energy up. For what, was another question entirely.

A knock on the door caused me to quickly close out of the database that I should've only had access to blood reports but I had hacked my way in to the rest, and turned my chair to face the intruder of my privacy.

"Dex, The Lieutenant's looking for you" my sister, Debra told me as she stepped inside my tiny office. She was holding a glazed donut in her hand which caused my stomach to complain again. "They got a case, a shooter. Routine stuff, you know" she took a bite of the donut, not even caring to offer me any. Rude.

"Okay" I told her as I picked up my forensics kit which was laying on the ground. "What about you?"

"I'm stuck with Frank-I mean Lundy-I mean Agent Lundy-fuck whatever you want to call him!" My sister had a knack of being able to seamlessly insert curse words into a simple conversation. And it was no secret to anyone that she was dating the FBI agent. As far as I was concerned, it was good to keep him distracted from the real reason he was in Miami. Me.

The Bay Harbor Butcher case, a vigilante killer who killed only killers. At least that's what the department thought about him. They also thought that he was Sergeant Doakes who had seemingly disappeared into thin air when they had found my box of souvenir slides in the back of his car. He did seem the perfect culprit. It couldn't possibly be the innocent lab geek known as Dexter.

It wasn't a bad idea to get the current status of the investigation. "You got anything new?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "Not jack shit" she paused to take another bite of the donut. "Doakes just fucking vanished. He's like a damn ghost. We can't track anything, credit cards, ATMs, he hasn't used his phone in days" she decided to explain with a mouthful of pastry. She paused again to swallow. "Anyways, we're going to try to get a lead by searching his place. Fuck knows if we'll find anything"

"Well best of luck to you" I encouraged with a faked smile. How could it be possible to have a real one when all I wanted at the current moment was the half eaten donut in her hand.

"Luck's not done shit for us so far" she retorted, reducing the donut into a small piece as she took another bite. "Fuck, I can't believe Doakes would do something like this"

 _Because he didn't_. "Well you know, some people are just really good at hiding who they really are" I told her. _Like me_.

She opened her mouth to speak again, but stopped. "You think I don't know that? I mean what about-Fuck Dexter!" She stormed out of the office but not before hurling the last piece of the donut into the garbage can. It was devastating really.

I sighed again as I put the strap of the kit over my shoulder and stood up. Debra had a right to be angry. I knew exactly what she was talking about. She would have a better idea of people hiding who they are then anyone. Just recently her boyfriend had proposed to her and tried to kill her in the same night. It wasn't exactly something anyone could get over easily.

But she was trying. She was dating again and wasn't staying in my place any longer. But he was still out there, and that made me anxious. Not because of Debra or anything, but because of who he was, my brother. A serial killer like me, who wanted me to be like him. I had refused him once when he had tried to get me to kill Debra but I knew he'd come back, it was just a matter of time.

I shook my head to clear it of my thoughts. I couldn't worry about that now. I had to focus on not getting caught now more than ever. One slip up and I was done for. They had to keep on Doakes. I walked out of the office and nearly collided with Angel Batista, or rather Lieutenant Angel Batista. "We're waiting on you socio" he told me as I closed the door.

Angel had just recently been promoted as the result of an untimely death of our old Lieutenant, Maria LaGuerta. She had found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time, as she had decided to follow me when I had been looking for Deb, who was being held hostage by my brother. Then she had made the foolish mistake of aiming a gun at me, and my brother had taken the opportunity to nearly slice her in half.

"Yeah Deb told me" I replied. "I just had to get a few things in order"

Angel nodded as he walked away towards the elevator. I followed him. Once we were alone, I decided to speak again. "So is there a lot of blood or something?"

"Nothing crazy" he told me. "Just a dealer shot in a shed, nothing we haven't seen before." I nodded. "Vince is busy on that other case, so I need you for this one" he finished.

Good I preferred to work alone. The elevator beeped as it opened in front of us. We stepped in and Angel pressed the button to go to the ground floor. The doors closed and he was silent for a while and then he spoke again. "We'll find him" he muttered catching me off guard. Which him was he referring to?

"Who?" I asked, hating that I had to clarify.

"Sergeant Doakes" he replied. "I know you're probably worried he might try to get back at you" he explained. "He really had it out for you"

"Yeah well, some people are just suspicious and I could kind of tell something was off about Doakes" I lied. "I think he must've caught on" I shrugged.

"Makes sense" he paused. "I can't believe we didn't catch this before. I mean with the whole Haitian issue, we should have seen this coming"

I simply nodded. A few months ago, Doakes had shot and killed an innocent Haitian man and we had been under the impression that it was self defense. But blood argued with that logic. He had shot him in cold blood.

"Well some people are just good at hiding who they are" I said for the second time that day. He had his own problems with my brother, when he had asked him a question pertaining to a lead on the Ice Truck Killer, and my brother had then stabbed him in a parking lot to keep him quiet.

He sighed. "You're right socio" he muttered, just as the doors of the elevator opened again. We left the elevator and headed towards the parking lot. I could see Debra was sitting in the front seat of Agent Lundy's car and they looked like they were having more fun making out then looking for Doakes. Still I wasn't complaining.

Angel, on the other hand simply sighed and shook his head. But Lundy was a superstar when it came to catching killers, so I don't think he was actually worried.

I climbed into my car and turned it on. Angel sat down in the passenger side. I pulled the car out of the parking lot and headed for the address that Angel had given me.

When we reached the crime scene, I could see that it was crawling with police officers, and the bright yellow crime tape was wrapped around the building. I parked the car and got out, closing the door behind me. As we walked up the hill towards the chaos, Angel flashed his badge so that we would be let in.

We headed towards a small shed that looked like where all the commotion was. Angel approached another cop. "What have we got?" He asked.

The cop shrugged. "Looks like some scumbag shot up another scumbag" he answered oh so helpfully. I moved my way towards the shack, stepping inside. On the ground was a dark skinned man, face down in the dirt. A pool of blood formed around him.

I bent down to seeing that the bullet was still lodged in his back. "What do you think Dex?" I heard Angel ask.

I sighed as I stood up again. "It looks like he took one single gun shot to the back" I told him. I headed towards the door and turned around in the door way, "the shooter was standing here, he fired at him. The victim fell down face first, and died instantly."

"We've got an ID on him" he explained. "Name is Ricardo Ajas" he paused. "They found his wallet in his pocket."

I simply nodded as I got to work, collecting blood samples, looking for fingerprints, hairs, anything. It was routine work, that I had done a million times and unlike most cases, I couldn't care less about who did it. Nothing was jumping out at me, except that this was a boring shooting.

By the time I had finished, it was around noon, and lunch time. I planned on stopping to get a sandwich on the way back to the station. Angel and I headed back to the car, and I got in.

Just as we were about to leave another cop ran up to Angel. "The victim's wife is here" he explained rapidly. "She said that he was driving a maroon pick up truck that night, even gave us the plates" he handed a slip of paper to Angel.

He nodded, gave a quick "thank you", and got into my car. I pulled away from the crime scene, and started to drive down the road,back towards the city.

"Hold up" Angel suddenly stated as we pulled around a tight curve. In the trees, was a truck that had driven into a ditch. A maroon truck. I pulled up onto the side of the road, as Angel pulled out the slip of paper. "That's it" he muttered after a second.

I turned the car off and stepped out grabbing my forensics kit. I headed towards the truck, which was rammed into a tree. The front bumper was completely destroyed and small clouds of steam were rising up from the engine. The driver wasn't present.

I ran thorough my usual sweep to collect evidence, taking samples of anything that the driver could've touched, and if he wasn't wearing gloves, we'd hopefully get a match. I even tested the turn signal, which most people forgot about wiping off.

When I was finished, I headed back towards Angel, who was at the back of the truck. "You got anything?" He asked.

"Let's hope so" I replied. We went back up to my car and then drove back to the station. I hadn't had time to get lunch, so I just bought something small at the stand outside the station.

When I was back in my office, I began testing all the evidence I had found. Most of it was nothing, and the hair I had found, turned out to be from a cat. When I went through the evidence from the truck, I was shocked to find an actual print. It was a partial, but I ran it through the database anyways.

Five seconds later, a pop up box appeared on my screen telling me that it had a match. I clicked on it and a picture and name popped up. Sergeant James Doakes.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note:

Here is chapter 2. I will hopefully be posting this more often now. Please read, review, and enjoy!

▪️Chapter 2▪️

(Dexter POV)

My mouth hung open as I stared dumbfounded at the screen. I reread the name three times just to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. Why would Doakes' prints be found in the truck? Had he killed him?

I clicked out of the print and quickly typed the name of the victim into the search box, and pressed enter. The man had been Haitian, just like the other man he had shot. He has come to Miami three years ago and formerly served in the Haitian military. Just like Doakes' other victim. Had he killed this man too?

I closed out of it, and brought my hand to my temple, closing my eyes. My head was spinning. Doakes was on the run, so why had he killed someone. If he was trying to prove he was innocent, this was not the way to go about it. I couldn't tell anyone else, because if it really was Doakes, why would he use a different MO from the Bay Harbor Butcher, unless he wasn't the Butcher. Then who was? And where'd he get the slides? Those were the last questions I needed.

And then another thought hit, causing a cheerful chuckle from my Dark Passenger. Doakes had killed. That made him fit for the code. I could get rid of him.

No it was too risky. If I messed up, it was all over. I had been holding back for awhile, and maybe it was time for a kill again, and maybe Doakes was the perfect playmate. I shook my head again, trying to get the horrible idea out if my mind. If Doakes wanted to go around shooting up random Haitian men, then who was I to stop him. If they caught him, it would just give him even more of a reason to be arrested.

I left work in a daze, and on the way home, I almost slammed into the back of a navy Chevy. As I pulled up to a red light, my phone started ringing. I picked it up to see that it was Rita and answered it.

Now I will admit, that talking on the phone and driving is not the safest habit, but it was also not a safe habit to ignore Rita's phone calls, especially when she was convinced I was using heroin, or with someone else. "Hey you"

"Hello Dexter..." I was unprepared for the deep English accent that came from the other line.

"Lila?" I tested. The last time I had seen her, she had admitted to sending the man who had killed my mother after me, in an attempt to bring the two of us closer. I had stormed out of her loft after that. Now she was probably trying to get revenge, and the fact that she had

Rita's phone was unnerving. "Where's Rita?" I asked quickly.

She simply sighed. "Your love with her will never be anything" she muttered. "Not like us"

"Lila, where is Rita?" I asked again.

It was silent, and then she spoke again. "I didn't hurt her if that's what you're worried about"

"Where is she?" I demanded my hand gripping the steering wheel.

"I'll see you soon" the line clicked as she hung up the phone. I slammed on the gas as the light turned green, and realized I had no choice but to go to her. I couldn't risk that she might not hurt Rita. It wasn't worth it. From what I had seen of Lila so far, was that she was manipulating and always got what she wanted. And right now, that was me.

I found myself at her loft twenty minutes later, standing at the door, knocking. Just like I was any other visitor. She opened it and immediately she smiled, but I could see behind it. "Dexter I'm so glad you could make it." She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me inside.

"Where's Rita?" I asked. She planted a kiss on my cheek.

"Don't worry about her" she whispered, letting a trail of kisses down my neck.

I shoved her away. "Lila, where is Rita?"

She pushed a strand of jet black hair away from her eyes. "She is fine" she muttered. She picked something up off the couch and tossed it towards me. "I just took her phone"

"You tricked me" I stated as I caught the phone. "You never had her?"

She shook her head. "Of course not, but I got you here" she sat down on the couch and grabbed my hand pulling me down too. "My plan worked"

"I'm not staying" I told her firmly. I tried to stand up, but she grabbed my arm again and pulled me back down with surprising strength.

"Yes you are" she ran her fingers through my hair slowly. "Or next time I really will hurt her" she picked up a glass of wine and handed it to me. "Drink" she told me softly.

I didn't exactly trust her, but at this point, I didn't have a choice. I sighed as I took a sip of the extremely unpleasant wine and handed the glass back to Lila.

"Not the best I know, but a girl can only afford cheap wine" she sighed as if it were the worse thing in the world. "If only my statues hadn't burnt down" she huffed, wrapping her arms around my torso, her fingers moving to my shirt and pulling it off. I didn't care to remind her that she was the one who had burnt them down.

One thing lead to another and the next thing I knew, I was lying in bed next to her, both of us completely naked. Her head was laying on my chest, and she snored as she slept.

I gently pushed her off of me, and stood up. I quickly pulled on my clothes. I left the loft, and immediately pulled out my phone. It was two in the morning. I got to my car and once I was inside I dialed Rita's home phone. Lila had said she was fine, but I just had to make sure.

"Dexter... It's late" I heard the soft voice answer.

"You mean early" I joked. "I've got your phone, I think you might've left it in my car"

"oh thank goodness! I've been looking everywhere for it" she paused. "You can just bring it over tomorrow, the kids are already asleep" she explained.

"Okay, will do" I agreed. I turned my car on.

"Alright see you then" she murmured.

"Yeah, bye" I hung up the phone and was about to put my car into reverse, when I noticed something odd on the windshield. A layer of fog had formed over the front window, but some of the fog had been wiped away. I grabbed a flashlight that was in the door and turned it on, shining it on the spot.

A smiley face had been drawn out in the absence of the fog. I turned the flashlight off and put it back in the door. It was nothing. Probably some kids from the neighborhood messing around. This wasn't exactly the best area, and if they saw my car they probably figured why not draw on the windshield. There were certainly worse things that they could've done.

I shifted the car into reverse, and pulled away from the loft, putting it into drive before driving down the street, starting to go back to my apartment.

When I got there I immediately noticed the second car parked next to my usual spot. Debra? What was she doing here? I got out of the car and headed down the path that lead to my small place. It wasn't a lot, but it was really all I needed. Just somewhere private to keep my supplies, and until recently, my slide collection.

As I reached the door, I pushed my key into the lock and turned it. I opened the door only to be stopped by the chain on the door. "Deb!" I called out.

I heard her footsteps as she approached the door, and heard the clink of metal as she fixed the chain. When she finally opened the door, I had been about to scold her for using the thing, but I stopped.

My sister looked like a ghost. Her face was pale, almost white. Beads of sweat rolled down her cheeks and across her forehead. Her lower lip was quivering and there was a panic in her eyes that I had only seen a few times in her entire life.

"Debra?..." I tested to see if she might've really been a ghost. It wouldn't surprise me, not in the slightest.

"Fuck. I've been waiting all night" she muttered in a cracked voice. "Where have you been?"

I scratched the back of my head. "It's a long story" I closed the door, turning to face was sister. "Debra are you okay?..."

"Do I look fucking okay?" She snapped. "Fuck Dexter, I needed you here and you don't show up until-" she paused to glanced at the clock. "Three o-fucking clock in the morning!"

"Sorry" I muttered. I couldn't figure out what had my sister so rattled. "What happened"

She met my eyes. "I saw _him_." She stuttered.

I had no idea which him she was talking about, so I took a guess. "Sergeant Doakes?"

She shook her head. "No" she paused before speaking again. "I saw Rudy."


End file.
